On the 19th of October, the Garret FitzGerald Autumn School took place in UCD to mark the launch of the new School of Social Sciences and Law. The theme of the Autumn School was ‘The Significance of the Social Sciences for 21st Century Ireland’. Prof. Suzanne Kingston and Dr. Geraldine Murphy presented a paper entitled ‘Getting the hierarchy right: The effects of law on environmental decision-making in Ireland’. This was great opportunity to discuss the new project. The paper was presented alongside other interesting and insightful presentations such as by our UCD colleague Dr. Clíona Kelly, who considered the influence of behavioural economics on the design of commercial law legislation.
The Autumn School ended with the UCD Garret FitzGerald Lecture, given by renowned author Cass R. Sunstein, who was considering ‘Is Behavioural Science Compatible With Democracy?’.